We made four papercraft stop motion whiteboard animations for AFEX to promote their global payment and risk management services. We were involved with all aspects of the creative process from script writing to colour grading.
The use of the whiteboard as a background is a stylistic choice – something you would typically find in a corporate training environment – as a contrast to the paper pieces and hands over the top. This gives the animations a handmade feel while still maintaining a professional mood. Mixed media is always a fun way to tell a story.
The orange and brown paper create a distinctive look across the series of animations and tie them together. We designed, cut, glued and animated what felt like a million pieces of paper. Working with paper is always a delicate process and in this case it was made even more tricky due to the slippery whiteboard.
One scene is particularly interesting as it involves dozens of L-shaped pieces of paper. These come together to create a world map representing AFEX’s 17,000+ global clients. Small paper pieces are prone to falling over and causing a domino effect. For this reason a small amount of glue is always a friend on set as it helps to keep scenes like this upright.
AFEX was pleased with how the explainer videos came out and enjoyed the playful twist the paper craft animation brought to the project. The feedback we received was that they were easy and fun to follow. Here at Picturesmith we are always striving to tell complex stories in the simplest way possible. Read our blog post to learn more about our methodology for this.
